A cute little vertical shooter that is undoubtedly more than inspired by classic Twinbee series, so I've decided to include it as part of our "3U Games" collection. Some background for non-Japanese speakers: Twinbee is a highly successful shooter series which Konami deemed too cute to appeal to the American market, and so never appeared outside Japan. I strongly urge everyone to download the NES and SNES ROMs of this series to find out why it's one of the best shooters ever, cuteness notwithstanding.

Developed by Frieve, one of the best freeware developers in Japan, CakeFight combines furious blast-everything-in-path gameplay with cute funland cartoons that Twinbee fans will instantly recognize. Your ship, for example, is a cute egg-shaped craft, and instead of shooting laser beams, it shoots round pellets that look like rubber balls. Don't let the high cute factor fool you, though-- CakeFight is by no means easy. End-level "bosses" in particular are quite tough to beat, and there is a wide variety of both ground- and air-based enemies for your shooting pleasure. With vibrant graphics and near-flawless gameplay, CakeFight is definitely one of the best, and most unknown, freeware shooters ever. Highly recommended!